


your kingdom for my graces

by paenteom



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: (of a sort), Dubious Consent, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Pining, Quantum Mechanics, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 19:11:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11973870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paenteom/pseuds/paenteom
Summary: There's an unconscious smile on Harold's face, and his pupils are blown so wide that there's only the barest ring of blue left. He turns his head when John sits next to him and smiles: wide, unguarded, and fond. John looks away.Harold and John are compromised during a case. John is forced to do damage control.





	your kingdom for my graces

**Author's Note:**

> don't do drugs, kids.
> 
> thanks so much to cy [cypress_tree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cypress_tree) for being the best beta a person could ask for and putting up with me in general, as well as tasha [waterfallliam](http://archiveofourown.org/users/waterfallliam/pseuds/waterfallliam) for endless support and word sprints.
> 
> **please heed the tag warnings and tread carefully.**

John tries to usher Harold up the stairs without actually having to touch him. Harold's breath is loud in the harsh silence of the corridor, his limp even more pronounced than usual. The feeling of rough wool under John’s fingers is a strange anchoring point in the darkened stairwell. When the door to his apartment finally closes behind them, he lets out an unconscious sigh of relief.

"Sit down," he says to Harold, and watches him amble towards his absurdly long couch. Harold’s easy compliance makes something twist in John's gut. He fills a glass with water from the sink and drinks it in four large gulps. He hadn't even realized how thirsty he was until now, but his throat is parched. He drinks a second glass just as quickly, then fills it again and sits next to Harold.

Harold is tipped back over the backrest of the couch, looking up at the ceiling. There's an unconscious smile on his face, and his pupils are blown so wide that there's only the barest ring of blue left. He turns his head when John sits next to him and smiles: wide, unguarded, and fond. John looks away. It feels wrong somehow to see him like this, like staring wide eyed-into an eclipse.

He thrusts the water glass into Harold's lax grip and barely manages to bite out: "Drink." Harold drinks. John watches his throat working, and swallows around nothing at all. He follows the trickle of water down Harold's neck. It's messy, undignified, and John suddenly can't bear the sight of it. He stares at his own lap instead, his hands flexing helplessly against his thighs. Eventually, the empty glass tips out of Harold's fingers and onto the couch, rolling halfheartedly and coming to a stop just before the edge.

John tries to recount the countless protocols on how to deal with situations like these. They were drilled into him before every mission, but his mind is broadcasting static on a loop. Somewhere from in between the hazy fog of panic he remembers: _Regularly check vitals._ He tries to force his hand to shake less but fails.

Harold doesn't flinch when John touches his neck, and John fiercely hates it, wishes Harold would do anything but lie there and take it. His pulse races under John's fingertips, beating hot under his skin at a rate that makes John's worry spike even higher. His fingers come away wet; the water trickled down into Harold's collar, leaving the fabric damp.

"Harold." His voice sounds strangled even to his own ears. "How are you feeling?"

Harold's eyes slide shut, body stretching languidly against the couch pillows. "I feel... good," he mumbles, his voice almost a purr. It's the first thing he has said since they arrived at the apartment. John stares at the pattern on Harold's tie and attempts to get his breathing back under control. He tries desperately to dredge up whatever slim knowledge he possesses on how to slow down heart rates. Cold Water. Breathing Exercises. The Carotid Maneuver.

"Your pulse is too high," John says, trying to keep his voice as free as possible from the immense worry he feels. He needs to be calm for Harold, or at least project a veneer of level headedness he doesn't feel. "I'm going to try to lower it, but you need to work with me, okay?"

"Yes," Harold says, eyes wide and quite obviously fixed on John's mouth. "Yes, John. Anything you want." John tries to ignore the way his stomach roils at the words. _He's drugged out of his mind_ , he reminds himself, and tries not to think too hard about why he needs the reminder.

John keeps his tone deliberately light as he reaches for Harold's neck again: "I need you to breathe slowly and regularly for me. Try to count to four between breaths."

"Yes," Harold says again, placid. "Yes, of course."

John rests his fingertips lightly above Harold's artery and watches Harold's eyes flutter shut at the contact. There's a slight smile on his face, just the faintest lift of the corners of his mouth, and something in John's chest twists painfully at the sight. "Ready?" he forces the word out, and Harold nods, his skin moving underneath John's fingertips, soft. "Breathe," John instructs, and presses firmly down.

He watches Harold's chest rise and fall slowly as he rubs along the artery. The rhythm is perfectly even and John counts along with it—one, Mississippi, two, Mississippi, three, Mississippi, four, Mississippi—and tries not to think about how warm Harold's skin feels. He can feel Harold's heartbeat slowing down bit by bit, until the desperate fluttering against his fingertips has reached a level that doesn't make John feel vaguely ill. He reduces the pressure until his touch is light, barely there, and then drops his hand.

John awkwardly clears his throat. "Should be fine now," he mumbles, and then moves to get off the couch. He feels hot somehow, sluggish, his shirt sticking to his back. Harold makes a soft noise of protest as soon as John's weight leaves his side. His eyes open slowly, focusing on John's face with obvious difficulty. "Don't go," he says. John has a sudden, dizzying moment of deja vu.

"I'm just going to the bathroom," he says, trying to make his voice sound as soothing as possible. Harold reaches out and takes John's hand between his own, his grip tight. John flinches at the touch, inhaling sharply.

"You'll come back?" Harold asks, pleading. He sounds lost, his mouth downturned into an upset line. "Please."

"Of course," John says, helpless. He wants to reach out and touch Harold's trembling thigh, but he bites down on the urge, because it's more selfish than not. "Of course I'll come back, Harold. Just give me five minutes."

"Five minutes," Harold says, seriously. "I'll count."

John hears the mumbling seconds counted out loud into thin air all the way to the bathroom.

The click of the door behind him seems unnaturally loud. He fumbles along the wall for the light switch and winces when the room is flooded with bright, fluorescent light. He blinks around the spots dancing in his vision, then makes his way to the sink. The sound of water hissing out of the tap causes him to flinch. He angrily rubs his hand across his face. _Get your shit together, John._

He cups his hands under the faucet and waits until they've filled with water before splashing it into his face. The cold is a shock to his system, making him gasp out loud. He blinks droplets out of his eyes, then straightens. His reflection in the mirror makes him grimace. There's a flush spreading out from under his collar and up his neck, his cheeks red against the sallow yellow of his skin. The eyes staring at him from behind the glass are dark, pupils huge even in the glare of the bathroom light. He shivers unconsciously.

Harold is sprawled halfway across the couch when John steps back into the living room. He's humming to himself—some opera doubtlessly—his arm flung over the side of the couch, fingers carding through the carpet. He twists his entire body in John's direction as soon as he hears his steps approach, and blubbers happily.

"Missed you," he mumbles, and John can't stop the small smile that forms at the words, helpless. 

"I wasn't gone for that long," he says. 

Harold gives him a defiant stare. "You were gone for 264 seconds," he says. "That's a lot of time." He stretches out an arm and pats the space next to his head. "Time to come back now."

John pads over to him on socked feet, and lowers himself slowly onto the armrest of the couch. Harold's gaze had been tracking his progress across the carpet, but his eyes are unfocused and as soon as John sits down they start to slip closed. Alarm bells start ringing in John's head.

 _The number one rule when being dosed with an unknown drug is to not let the subject become unconscious,_ Kara whispers in his head. _Keep them awake at all cost._ John reaches out to touch Harold, but his hand hovers uselessly in the air above Harold's shoulder.

"Hey," he says quietly, his voice sounding brittle, muted in the dim lighting of the apartment. Harold barely reacts, the barest twitch of his mouth is the only proof he heard John at all.

"Hey," John repeats, "I know you're tired but you can't sleep. Not yet."

Harold's eyes flutter open with difficulty. "Why?" he asks, managing to sound so petulant that John has the urge to laugh.

"Because it'd be dangerous," he explains patiently. "We need to make sure you're not having any unexpected side effects. Just trust me on this."

"I do. I do trust you."

The words are so matter of fact that it takes John a second to register the meaning. He blinks at Harold, warmth slowly spreading up his neck in a slow, tingling crawl. Harold blinks back, looking a little more alert.

John mentally flicks through his rolodex of things that usually occupy Harold's mind, but none of them seem particularly safe at this point in time. Eventually he settles on a desperate but predictable topic.

"How many digits of Pi do you know by heart?"

Harold tilts his head. "Quite a lot."

"Prove it."

John watches the way Harold's mouth shapes itself around the digits, listening to the way his voice slowly evens out until its quality is less heavy, more present. It's almost meditative and John slowly lets himself sink into the white, silent place inside of him that only exists as a vehicle for his breath.

Harold breaks off abruptly and John blinks rapidly while he waits for his eyes to refocus. It can't have been more than a minute, but it still feels like forcefully dragging his brain out of swamp water.

"I used to know more than that," Harold says mournfully.

"Still more than me," John shrugs and tries to scan Harold as covertly as possible for any signs that he might be unwell.

He seems quieter now. The last vestiges of bubbly energy have left him, and more than tiredness has seeped into his bones. His eyes are glassy. John watches him nervously, a restless energy thrumming underneath his skin. He half expects Harold to go up in smoke any minute for some reason; his presence here feels wrong, like an itch at the back of John's mind.

John studies the relaxed lines of Harold's body, the way he seems to melt into the couch with none of the usual rigidity that normally occupies him. It hurts, somehow, to see him like this. It feels like a break of trust, a back alley mugging. He looks away.

"Feels like yesterday since I bought this apartment."

Harold's voice doesn't break the silence so much as seep through its cracks; it's low and slightly raspy and John fights the urge to get up and fetch him more water, no matter how much his fingers twitch.

He doesn't reply. Harold doesn't seem to mind; he just pushes himself up on his elbows and lets his gaze sweep around the room.

"Do you like living here?"

The question takes John off guard. He blinks at Harold, unsure how to answer. The truth is that it had made him uneasy at first. All this empty space, the wide windows, it all had combined just perfectly enough to keep the back of John's neck itching for weeks after he had first moved in, alarm bells constantly ringing in the back of his head. Even now he still finds himself mapping out the floor plan whenever he enters, eyes trained on dark corners and closed doors.

Even so, it's home; the first he's had in years. John breathes out slowly and thinks back to the first time he stepped into this place, the room bathed in warm light that seemed to permeate every part of him. He had been clutching the key, Harold's _gift_ , so hard it left indents on his palm.

Of course he likes living here. Harold bought it for him.

He shoots a sideways glance towards Harold and is taken aback by the intensity of Harold's focus on him. He looks expectant, like the answer to his question matters more than his casual tone betrayed. John bites his lips.

"Yes," he says eventually. "Yeah, I like it here." It's not the entire truth, but it's the truth he wants Harold to know.

Harold's smile is blinding. It's the most open John has ever seen him and John wishes he could bask in that, not feel sick at the circumstances under which this conversation is happening. He looks away a fraction too quickly and hopes that Harold doesn't notice.

"Good," Harold says softly. "Very good." He rights himself, his knee touching John's for just a minute as he rearranges himself on the couch. The touch burns like a brand.

"I realize the gift was somewhat presumptuous of me at the time, but when I found this place I couldn't help but think—" He breaks off, his hands fluttering nervously in his lap like a small congregation of birds. "I'm sorry if this line of questioning seems sudden. I worried that you don't feel comfortable here. You seem to spend most of your free time at the library."

Harold isn't wrong, not entirely anyway. John very rarely spends his downtime at home, so he can see how it would come off like distaste for this place. The problem isn't the apartment itself, it's that he feels _lonely_ in this big space on his own. Even just thinking this feels ridiculous. He has spent most of his life alone, he should be used to it by now.

But maybe that's exactly where the problem lies: in their late night take out dinners, the soft clattering of Harold's keyboard, the smell of leather and dust. He should have known better than to let himself get comfortable, _attached_. Being tethered to a particular place, a particular person, always leads to danger and the loss of objectivity. The CIA had tried its hardest to disavow him of the ridiculous notion that he could lead a normal life with normal relationships, and yet he had let himself step right back into that bear trap. He welcomed the bite of steel when he should have recoiled.

John has always been a creature of habit.

The silence stretches for a few seconds too long, and John tries desperately to come up with a bland answer to Harold's implicit question.

"I'm trying to get through all the classics before the end of the year," he eventually says, trying to keep his tone light and hoping that Harold doesn't see right through him.

" _Eat, Pray, Love_ is a classic now is it," Harold says, amusement ringing in his voice like a bell.

John can't help the small smile that escapes him. He remembers Harold wrinkling his nose at the sight of the cover as vividly as if had happened five minutes ago.

He shrugs exaggeratedly. "I like Julia Roberts."

He's aware he's deflecting. Harold probably is, too, judging by the way he tilts his head and narrows his eyes just the slightest bit, probing John with his gaze.

"John," he starts, only to break off, the silence like wet cement between them. John suppresses the nervous urge to bounce his leg. There's a sick feeling of anticipation pooling low in the bottom of his stomach, like the split second after he pulls the trigger.

"John," Harold starts a second time. His voice sounds grave, alert in a way that shouldn't be possible considering the state they are both in, the way he's slurring his words, and John realizes with a start that his heart is hammering in his chest.

"I hope you know that if you're dissatisfied with anything here, if you'd like a change of scenery— You can ask me for anything you want."

The words are so earnest that something twists, painfully, in John's chest. It feels like something is trapped beneath his rib cage, trying to claw its way out into the stale apartment air. He sucks in a deep breath through his teeth.

_You can ask me for anything you want._

Harold is perfectly still next to him, the rise and fall of his chest the only movement that betrays the reality of the situation. John blinks, his vision hazy at the edges. Grounding himself in the context of the situation seems harder and harder the more he attempts it.

He feels like reality should be tearing at the edges, two parallel universes colliding: the one where he has imagined those words coming out of Harold's mouth during countless sleepless nights in which giving in seemed easier than fighting, and the one where Harold actually said them out loud like he meant them. _You can ask me for anything you want._

John is tired of wanting things from Harold.

He feels like something cracked somewhere inside of him, a hairline fracture slowly leaking longing into his bloodstream like an oil spill. His fingers flex uselessly against the leather upholstery.

He tries to play it off, make a joke out of the situation to defuse the tension that has filled the room ("A potted plant would be nice.") but the words pool underneath his tongue, unsaid.

Harold is close enough that John could count the single threads of wool of his jacket if he wanted to. His thigh is warm where it is pressed against John's, a strange anchor. It would be so easy to reach out and touch him, slide his hand up until—

 _Anything you want._ John's breath is coming in sharp, short bursts. _It's not like that_ , he keeps repeating in his own head. It's not— Harold isn't— This isn't—

 _You've spent too much time around him, John_. Kara's cold voice drips with amusement. _Got it in your pretty little head that you're better than this. Well, you're not. It's better to accept that now than to continue deceiving yourself and him, John, don't you think?_

John closes his eyes and inhales a low, shivering breath. There's a headache beginning to throb behind his left temple. He lifts a hand to rub at it for some relief, but it lands on Harold's knee instead. Harold makes an inquisitive noise and turns towards him, eyes wide and unassuming.

It's distressingly easy to slide his hand up Harold's thigh until his fingertips are just brushing the stitched pocket of Harold's trousers. His heart hammers wildly in his chest, the rhythm like gunfire in his ears.

"John," Harold says quietly and John freezes. He is terrified of meeting Harold's gaze, staring at the pattern of his tie instead. His fingers tremble at Harold's belt, the leather soft under his fingers.

"John," Harold says again, and closes his hand around John's wrist. He sounds drunk, nothing of his usual sharp, articulate cadence left in him. John can't stand it. He watches helplessly as Harold raises John's wrist up to his mouth and presses a soft kiss just below his palm. It makes John want to bolt out of the room, out of the city, out of this life he had somehow stumbled into despite not deserving any of it.

He looks up to meet Harold's eyes and immediately regrets it; the kindness in them makes him feel sick .

 _You have no idea what I want to do to you_ , he doesn't say out loud. It keeps repeating in his head anyway, his inner voice tinged with hysteria.

Unbuckling Harold's belt is easy. John watches the dust motes dance in the low light while he does it, sliding the prongs out of their holes with practiced ease. Harold is placid through all of it, his gaze prickling hotly on John's neck. He never makes any move to stop him and John clings to that fact like driftwood in a storm.

The sound of the belt sliding out of the loops is almost obscenely loud in the quiet room. John takes his time curling it up fastidiously, a neat little spiral safely deposited on the soft carpet. He tells himself it's because he knows how expensive it is. During that quiet afternoon spent ambling through New York City he watched Harold buy it after deliberating for almost half an hour. But he knows: more than anything it's a way to prolong having to face what comes after.

He takes his time with the buttons on Harold's trousers, slipping them through the buttonholes slowly, deliberately. The abalone is cool under his fingers. He's close enough that he can feel the rise and fall of Harold's breath, and he doesn't know whether the steadiness of it makes him feel better or worse.

Harold is still soft when John takes him in hand, but he feels good anyway, hot and breathtakingly human. John uses just his fingertips at first, drawing patterns on the soft skin, before closing his palm around the length. His rhythm is a little off at first, but he doesn't think Harold minds; John watches him shiver slightly, eyes slipping shut. It doesn't take long to coax him to hardness. John drinks up every sigh and moan greedily, hoarding them in the quiet, empty place within him where all the things he won't let himself think about dwell (the blood in his mouth, the blood on his hands, Kara's hands on him, every number they've lost, every single time they've touched, skin to skin, Harold warm and alive against him—).

John rubs his thumb over the head of Harold's cock, slow, deliberate, and revels in the way Harold's hand clenches around John's elbow and his hips buck up into John's fist. He stares at Harold's white knuckles and wonders how they arrived in this moment. It feels surreal, only barely tethered in reality.

"I want—" Harold murmurs, and John immediately cranes his neck closer to hear. "Yes," Harold says and tugs John forward by his elbow. "Come closer. Please." John's stomach twists, his heart stuttering out of rhythm. He shifts onto his knees, bracketing Harold's thighs with his own. They're close enough like this that John can feel Harold's breath on his face, little puffs of air against his skin. Harold's eyes are wide and dark. John looks away.

The angle is a little more awkward like this, but Harold doesn't seem to care: his tight grip around John's arm relaxes, his fingers loosely curling against him, and he sighs contentedly. John wants him to make that sound over and over, wants to drink it out of his mouth. They're only centimeters apart. John wants to kiss him, his cheek, the corners of his lips, his open mouth.

He doesn't. There are boundaries even he won't cross. He buries his face in Harold's hair instead and inhales the faint smell of soap and cologne. It's easier like this, when he doesn't have to look at him, to let his fingers dip beneath Harold's shirt, stroking his collarbone.

Light dances across his closed eyelids. Like this, every sound feels strangely amplified: the rustle of clothes, their heavy breathing, the faint noise of traffic outside, the sound of skin on skin.

Harold makes a soft, wet sound against the side of John's neck and it's all John can do not to cup his face in his hands and press his mouth to Harold's, kiss him until—until—

He contains himself.

Harold's breath is hot against John's skin, lips dragging across the stubble just underneath John's jaw in a way that leaves him shivering, want sinking into him like water. He feels like every molecule in his body is straining towards Harold, everything he is scattering into blank white heat. His rhythm doesn't falter, even through the faint trembles wracking his body. Harold pushes up into the heat of John's palm in small, helpless motions, fingers curled into the back of John's collar. Every soft gasp out of his mouth is met with John's own.

John distantly remembers Harold's voice on a quiet, overcast morning in the stacks of the library: " _Quantum entanglement describes a physical phenomenon in which two particles are irrevocably linked, their quantum state forever mirroring their partner no matter the distance. This has far reaching consequences for the creation of future AI, as quantum computing—_ "

The image drifts in and out like a flickering radio frequency; John's thoughts move slow, neurons not firing quickly enough to hold it in his mind for more than a few seconds. He presses his mouth against Harold's temple, pretends it's not a kiss. He wonders if Harold is as easily fooled as John's conscience.

"John," Harold breathes against John's neck, and then again, the sound dripping off his tongue so tenderly that John's fingers clench into Harold's vest involuntarily. John forces himself to look at him.

"Yes, Harold," he manages somehow, tightening his grip around him just the slightest bit and reveling in the soft gasp he gets in return.

"Feels good," Harold mumbles. "Feels so good. John, you are—" He breaks off, a quiet moan escaping him; the hot gust of air against John's skin borders on too much.

"Yeah," John rasps, his rhythm on Harold's cock speeding up. "Yeah, I know."

It's too much, suddenly, Harold's wide, blue eyes on him, his fingers stroking alongside John's neck, his cock hard and hot against the skin of John's palm. John feels unmoored, adrift, the ache in his chest expanding until everything else feels quiet in comparison.

He buries his face against the rough fabric of Harold's vest and breathes out harshly. There are words he desperately wants to say, words that are lying heavy on the back of his tongue. He doesn't.

John can tell when Harold gets close, his quiet moans turning into breathy groans. His fingers tighten around John's neck, and John imagines Harold's fingerprints on his skin, white pressure points blooming around the warmth of his touch. He closes his eyes when Harold comes, spilling over the back of John's hand. He'd rather not know how Harold looks like when he—

It's not an image he deserves to recall late at night, when he's alone.

 _None of this is_ , Kara's voice in his head like smog. _None of it, but you still went ahead and took it anyway. What does that say about you, John?_

John stays with his face pressed into the warmth of Harold's vest, listening to his irregular heartbeat slowly even out. When Harold starts petting his head gently, John slowly extricates himself from the embrace; he ignores Harold's soft sound of protest and sits up. There's something lapping at the back of his mind like waves but his thoughts are too muted to focus. He stares at the come on his hand instead, considering.

Harold's hand on his knee jars him into motion. He trails his gaze up Harold's arm and over the flushed skin at his neck to Harold's face. His eyes are wide, wet, and John holds his gaze for a while before slowly lifting his hand to his mouth and licking a broad stripe across the back of it.

Harold inhales sharply, the hand on John's knee tightening for a fraction of a second before relaxing. John licks himself clean fastidiously, his gaze never leaving Harold's. He barely notices the taste, too busy cataloging Harold's every hitch of breath. Warmth spreads in him like honey at the way Harold's gaze keeps darting to his lips. John wants to kiss him. He wants to put his mouth all over him, slowly, methodically, until Harold is trembling underneath him.

John supposes he wants a lot of things he can't have.

Harold falls asleep in stages: eyes slowly fluttering closed, grip turning lax, breath evening out into a quiet plateau. John watches him and tries not to drown in the fondness welling up in him. The flat is quiet, the only sounds Harold's soft breathing and the faint noise of traffic from outside. John allows himself a few minutes of this, Harold's warmth next to him and this moment, suspended between two seconds like something happening perpetually, happening never.

He pushes himself up on trembling legs once his allotted time is over. It takes effort, like the fog spread from his brain to his limbs, turning them laden and muted. Walking feels like heavy water. He still makes it to the bathroom somehow.

The sound of the door closing behind him seems deafening. John doesn't turn the light on this time. He finds the edge of the bathtub by memory and sinks down onto the cold porcelain, feels the bite even through the fabric of his trousers. His hand trembles when he shoves it down his pants.

He touches himself with none of the tenderness he used with Harold. The movement is quick, perfunctory, bordering on painful. It doesn't take long. John bites down on his own wrist when he comes, muffling the sound. It feels like a secret not even the darkness is allowed to know.

 _That's the funny thing about self-deception, John_ , Kara says in his head. _It either doesn't work at all, or much too well_.

John blinks tiredly at his own fingers, blurred in the low light. He feels hazy at the edges, only vaguely corporeal. Slowly, shape by shape, the bathroom emerges out of the dark as his vision adjusts. He watches stars swim in front of his eyes and tries not to think about his body: myriads of particles keeping him moving, breathing, thinking, aching. _Quantum entanglement describes a physical phenomenon in which two particles are irrevocably linked_.

John thinks about Harold sleeping in the living room, how his heartbeat felt like benediction underneath John's palm. Sometimes, during the bad nights, he imagines what would happen if it were to stop; would his own body dissolve, atoms scattering apart into nothing?

Harold is fast asleep when John re-enters the living room, a still shape against the soft cushions, slightly blurry at the edges. John stands just close enough to watch the slow rise and fall of his chest, but he doesn't touch him. There is more than fear stopping him. The distance between them seems so vast and insurmountable, like time itself is caving in between them.

When he was eleven, John was involved in a car crash. He was sitting in the backseat, the sun warmed leather hot against his bare shins. The collision itself couldn't have taken more than a few seconds, but it stretches endlessly in John's mind: the brakes of his mother's car screeching, the sound of metal on metal, the way John's seatbelt pressed against his skin as he ricocheted forward. Everything was so bright, so white, like the world was remaking itself into something better.

John remembers very little of what happened after. He thinks he might have been numbly staring at the red blood splattered against the car window, wondering when things would start feeling real again, repeating the same words to himself over and over. _Not this world. Not this universe_. He wonders sometimes how many alternate versions of him used those words to calm their final hours.

John knows Harold isn't likely to remember anything when he wakes up, didn't when he was drugged the last time either. That's the thing about car crashes: they happen very slowly, and then not at all. John has not decided yet whether that makes things worse, or better.

He washes the glass Harold drank out of at the kitchen sink, over and over, until his fingers are pruney and his skin is cracking. It's not like he cares that Harold's mouth was on it, or maybe before tonight he would have cared too much in the wrong way. It's more out of a desire to have something to do with his hands; something clean, something useful.

He can hear Harold snoring softly in the background. The novelty of Harold letting his guard down enough around John to fall asleep in his presence had still not worn off before today. John wonders if he will ever be able to enjoy it again without swallowing around shame.

His shirt is damp with sweat but he doesn't take it off. He feels, irrationally, like the slightest alteration to their current conditions is going to have unpredictable consequences, like a lab experiment gone wrong. He ignores the way it sticks to his skin, his shaking hands. It's immaterial, unreal. In a few hours Harold will wake up, likely with a headache and many questions John doesn't know how to answer; until then John is still allowed to pretend. Not this room. Not this universe.

It's not as if it would be something alien to him: pretending. He has done it all his life in some capacity, has never had a relationship with Harold where either of them were completely honest. Nothing would have to change. John repeats this to himself over and over again in the hopes that this will make him believe it. He wonders when he stopped being able to tell himself that just wanting something was enough.


End file.
